PowerShot S40 software for Windows 11

[Mont]

I have an old Canon Powershot S40 camera and a modern Windows 11 laptop. I searched on line for the software downloads but it seems like the software is not compatible with windows 11? Other than a card reader how can I get the Powershot S40 to interact with my laptop? I have given the camera to my grandaughter for her to experiment with and she has an apple mac computer, latest and we couldn't find anything to interface with that either. The camera is in mint condition and I had lots of fun with it in the past so was hoping that this was not dead technology?

Thanks in advance

Phil

[p4pictures]

Card reader is the solution, there’s no current software support for a camera of that age to connect direct to the computer.

They were great cameras though. 

[kvbarkley]

Image Capture and a good cable should work on the Mac.

[normadel]

What do you mean by "interact" between camera and computers?

If all you want to do is transfer images from camera to computer, you don't need ANY software. Just a USB cable with the right connectors......USB-MiniB on the camera to whatever USB port the computer has. The camera should show up as a drive in Windows File Explorer or on the desktop of the Mac.

[mikelee33]

Phil won't see this, but this issue is not a simple one, and this info may help someone else understand what's (not) happening. The information is also pertinent due to the nostalgia in older digicams and their current popularity, even among professionals.

Connecting the Canon S40 to a Windows 11 machine with a USB cable will not fix the issue. I have many Canon cameras of this vintage, including both the Canon S40 (2001) and S50 (2003), and while the S50 can indeed be connected and recognized by Windows 11 to allow file download via USB, the S40 can not be used this way. The driver for the S50 is automatically installed upon connection, while no driver is installed for the S40. This could be due to several reasons, but essentially, there were driver changes made between these two models which preclude the S40 driver from being automatically installed.

No driver is available from Canon for download, and installing and attempting to download images via (vintage) ZoomBrowser will also not work. Having said all this, there does not appear to be any recourse but to use a card reader.

You will see that Device Manager sees the S40 when plugged in via USB, but no driver is forthcoming, either automatically or via an update attempt.